jarwarren/joystick

A Joystick class for use with SpriteKit. Drag and drop to install. Converts the user's touches to a Direction.

Joystick

An 8-directional joystick class that sends updates to a delegate. Drag and drop to install. Does not come with assets.

I needed a joystick for a SpriteKit demo I was building and couldn't find anything online. I hope that by uploading it to github, someone else may be able to benefit from the way I implemented it - or perhaps even use it directly in their own project.

Explanation

My HUD is built in UIKit and sends user input via the delegate pattern. Joystick is a subclass of UIImageView that reads user touches, determines where in itself they occured, and translates them into a direction.

The delegate is only notified when the direciton changes, so that the hero can react accordingly. If the user lets go of the joystick, the delegate receives a nil direction. An opportunity to "idle" your hero.

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Installation

1. Drag and drop both Swift files into your project.
2. Add a UIImageView to your storyboard and subclass it as a Joystick.
3. Check the box that says User Interaction Enabled. (Or set isUserInteractionEnabled = true in Swift).
4. Create an outlet and in viewDidLoad(), set your ViewController as the joystick's delegate.
5. Conform to JoystickDelegate.

Feel free to make any edits you want. (Ex. rotate a single asset instead of providing one for each direction.)